IMPORTANCE OF ARTS AND CREATIVE INDUSTRIES

That this House notes the importance of arts and creative industries, with art and culture being at the heart of communities, central to the lives of individuals across the country and internationally renowned; further notes that Britain's creative industries are worth more than £36 billion a year to the economy, employ 1.5 million people in the UK and are crucial to jobs and growth now and in the future; further notes the forthcoming Comprehensive Spending Review and the cuts that have already been made to the arts; and calls on the Government, working through the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and other departments, particlularly the Treasury, Education, Business, Innovation and Skills and Communities and Local Government, to take forward a strategy for the arts and creative industries that includes putting art and creativity at the heart of the curriculum, ensuring the creative industries have access to finance, including opening up innovative new funding models such as crowdfunding, protecting intellectual property, balanced with the needs of consumers supporting the arts and creative industries in all regions of the country, not just London, and monitoring the local impact of government cuts on culture, attracting inward investment and providing support for exports and ensuring equality of access to and equality of opportunity for all in the arts.